Rev Thembelani Jentile, Mamelodi: "It wouldn't be right to compare me to Gandhi. None of us could equal his dedication or humility" said Nelson Mandela about Mahatma Gandhi in 1997.

At the beginning of the following year - 1998 - Graca Machel said of Mandela: "I found this very simple man."

As the country celebrates Madiba's birthday, it is important to remember that it is his humility that has singled him out as a successful leader.

Contrary to popular opinion, humility gives tensile strength to leadership. As we have seen with Mandela, true leadership, the essence of what people long for, implies a humility that elicits the best response from people. People follow more enthusiastically when they perceive the leader to have selfless, worthy motives.

Jim Collins in Good to Great has discovered that great leaders "are a study in duality: modest and wilful, humble and fearless".

They are ambitious, but ambitious first and foremost for the organisation, not themselves. They lead by serving.

Hence, the entire country will dedicate 67 minutes of service to the community.

I wish our leaders could reflect on the life of this great icon and learn the things that made him great.

Madiba would say of himself, "I was not a Messiah, but an ordinary man who became a leader because of extraordinary circumstances."